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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26592685">HR Nightmare</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhonda/pseuds/Rhonda'>Rhonda</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Crushes, Dissociation, Exposed Diary, Female Pronouns for Grell Sutcliff, Gender-neutral Reader, Grim Reapers, Harassment, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Oranges, Other, Panic Attacks, Polyamory, Reaper Reader - Freeform, Suggestive Themes, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, nonbinary reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:40:34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,613</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26592685</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhonda/pseuds/Rhonda</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After someone exposes parts of your diary for all of Dispatch to see, your only source of solace lies with your friends. Unfortunately, your exposed diary outlines just how desperately you've been crushing on each of them, and you have no idea if you can face them now.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Grell Sutcliff/Reader, Othello/Reader, Ronald Knox/Reader, William T. Spears/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>58</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>HR Nightmare</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Myopsina/gifts">Myopsina</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You didn’t know who did it, but you certainly had a few ideas. You had the unfortunate habit of making enemies. You’d only been out of the academy for a few years and you already had more Reapers that hated your guts than you could count on all your fingers and toes. </p><p> </p><p>It wasn’t fair. Sure, you could be a little narcissistic sometimes. So what if you felt like you were the protagonist of your own story? That, and you had the tendency to be tactless and catty. But that was all just part of your saucy audacious charm. At least all your friends could see that.</p><p> </p><p>Even with all your enemies, this was a whole new level. Whomever had stolen your diary, photocopied its pages, circled the most incriminating parts in highlighter and posted them up on every cork board on every floor of the building must have been very spiteful indeed.</p><p> </p><p>It felt like such a typical Tuesday this morning, but looking back maybe you knew that something was wrong from the moment you woke up. Or maybe you were just projecting. When you saw them and started realizing what they were, your heart began racing. It shook you to your very core and you felt a deeply unsettling chill start at your shoulders and precipitate down to pool in your lower tummy.</p><p> </p><p>You were kind of dissociating your brain out, actually. It felt like your normal self had gone to sleep in your head and a new robotic emotionless you had stepped up to the pitch. You were both of them, perceiving your physical surroundings both as the emotionless robot and the scared little kid hiding under their blankie inside their own head. Without any thought at all you ran from floor to floor snatching up the pages off of the cork boards. To your luck it seemed like most people weren’t paying attention. Either too groggy, too disinterested, or too overworked to care about all your scandalous secrets being laid bare. There were a few awkward lookie loos. Some of them had the good grace to look bashful when you ran up and tore down the posters, others interrogated you with a glare of detest, but most just looked at you blankly. </p><p> </p><p>You finally made it to your Division where you saw what you were most afraid of, it looked like the entire office had gathered around the bulletin board and was reading intently, joking amongst themselves at what they saw. Of course you had written about all of them, and most of it wasn’t nice. A few of them even looked upset. </p><p> </p><p>You just hoped none of your crushes saw all of the dirty things you said about them. Even Grelle would never want to look at you again if she knew. You were frozen in place unable to act. The many pages of cheap photocopy paper bunched in your arms began to slip and spill to the ground. You didn’t have a plan, you didn’t have the faintest clue for how to get out of this situation, and now your instinct wasn’t even here to guide you. It was like the robot that had taken over jammed up and now you were trapped in a broken unmoving shell.</p><p> </p><p>You suddenly felt a hand on your shoulder. You couldn’t move your head to see who it was, but you knew that voice from your fantasies. The way he said your last name, with that mix of disinterest, disapproval, and concern that he always had, made you shiver.</p><p> </p><p>“Do you, by chance, know what the meaning of this is?” asked your office manager William T. Spears. Your face felt hot realizing his hand was on you. You tried to respond, you really did, but you just couldn’t move a muscle. His hand was warm, even through your suit and his glove, and he gave just the faintest hint of a squeeze when you didn’t reply.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, what’s the big idea here! Some sort of work function and I wasn’t invited?” came a shrill foppish voice from your other side. “Not that I would have gone anyway. Ah, darling, you dropped some of your paperwork on the floor here- oh, what is this?”</p><p> </p><p>Your face burned even hotter. You didn’t want Grelle to find out how hot you thought she was. That and, of all of them, she was the one for whom the compromising things you wrote were by far the most compromising. You’d been head over heels for the woman since you met her to the point where writing about her had almost become something of an obsession.</p><p> </p><p>“You want me to do <em> WHAT </em> to you? With my <em> Death Scythe?! </em>” she said incredulously. The you that was hiding inside your own brain screamed at the top of their lungs while the you in the real world did nothing.</p><p> </p><p>“Grelle,” William started, giving you another squeeze, this time firmer, clearly intentionally trying to be reassuring, “crumple that paper into a ball and throw it away.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh hell yeah! I thought you'd never come around, let’s fucking trash the place,” she said, before throwing the paper on the ground and kicking over a nearby rubbish bin. “We won't be part of your system!” she shouted before proceeding to cut the office water cooler in half and pour its contents into an unattended mail cart.</p><p> </p><p>William just sighed and bonked her over the head with his Death Scythe before extending it all the way to part the crowd gathered around the bulletin board.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, I think that’s more than enough! Back to work, all of you,” he said sternly while walking up to it and pulling down all the pages of your diary. There was a smattering of grumbles from the crowd, but most of them seemed too wary of the boss’ wrath to complain. Once he gathered them into a neat little stack he walked back over to where Grelle lay on the floor, obviously playing up her injury, and where you stood frozen in time.</p><p> </p><p>He firmly yet tenderly pried your arms open to grab all of the sheets of copy paper you still clutched in your hands, before gathering the ones that had fallen to the floor. He tapped on them to make sure the stack was neat and even, before feeding them all into a nearby shredder. </p><p> </p><p>He left Grelle where she lay, took you by the hand, and led you into his corner office where he closed the door and sat you into one of the comfortable business chairs in front of his desk. </p><p> </p><p>“As the office manager it’s my duty to keep any distractions like these from taking place,” he sighed. “This is going to require so much paperwork... And I had already believed this week was going so smoothly. Now, I can tell you are severely distressed by these turn of events. Please tell me how I can best support you.”</p><p> </p><p>You still couldn’t talk, but being moved like that had at least jogged your muscles somewhat. You looked up at him with a blank expression and he looked down at you with a mix of concern and bemused interest. </p><p> </p><p>“No, this won’t do at all, hold on.” He moved around to the other side of his desk and opened a drawer. Before you knew it he had put something round and smooth and cool in your hand. You looked down at it. It was a navel orange.</p><p> </p><p>The size, texture, and temperature of the fruit helped ground you quicker than you thought. You giggled a little to yourself before moving to clumsily try to peel it.</p><p> </p><p>“Much better. Now, please let me know what it is that you need.”</p><p> </p><p>“I… I… don’t… I… never… expected…” you said in staccato outbursts, still hardly at the helm of your own mind. You didn’t get very far before you trailed off entirely.</p><p> </p><p>“Hmm… Well, I’m hardly an expert in these matters, but I can offer support where I can. You are free to take the rest of the day off as you see fit.” </p><p> </p><p>“Just… let me sit… I think…”</p><p> </p><p>“Very well, if you’d like I can leave you the room to yourself. However, I have some business I need to complete that I would rather stay here for.”</p><p> </p><p>“I think I… prefer it… actually… you being… here… I mean...” you said. He hummed a low acknowledgement without looking up from his work. You sat there for what must have been twenty minutes listening to the ticking of the clock in his office. The noise set the tempo for the rhythmic sounds of pen on paper, the shuffle of files, and the occasional sigh. It was nice just being in the room with him. Having him there helped you a lot, it kept you from falling any further into your own thoughts, always knowing he was right there with you.</p><p> </p><p>Eventually you stood up and walked around, humming to yourself. You never did get the orange peeled and it slowly had taken on your own body temperature to the point where it felt like it was just another part of you, an extension of your hand. Your hums eventually turned into little spatterings of words and syllables.</p><p> </p><p>William’s eyebrows twitched, and you could tell his work was being disrupted by the noise you were making. Any other time you knew he wouldn’t hesitate to make his displeasure clear. But here and now he held his tongue and you loved him all the more for it. You were pretty sure he was the only one in your department who didn’t read any of the pages, which you appreciated the irony of, knowing just how dirty the thoughts you had written about him were, especially when compared to his demure exterior. </p><p> </p><p>Eventually you started talking to yourself and tossing the orange back and forth from one hand to the other. He couldn’t keep his annoyance to himself anymore and he addressed you.</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I can see that you’re feeling better. You’re still free to take the day off, but I do unfortunately require silence to concentrate on my work.” He really came across as a hardass, but when his employees were in trouble he always did have their back. Grelle too, even if he didn’t keep his distaste towards her behavior to himself.</p><p> </p><p>“It’s okay, I think I should still be able to fill my quota for today.”</p><p> </p><p>“That’s good to hear, I hope you can trust me to handle the fallout from this situation with discretion.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, William?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yes?”</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p> </p><p>He gave you a small hum of acknowledgement and you left his office to head to your cubicle. You’d have to make a shift of collections later but for now you set in to finish up your current deskwork. More than anything all you wanted was to get out of the Reaper Realm and away from all this drama, the sooner you finished up the files on your desk the quicker you could go detox with some fresh air.</p><p> </p><p>As you scratched away at the forums on your desk you heard the less noisy of your two neighbors finally arriving in late to work. Ronald was typically punctual, but there were times when he’d be out too late and end up sleeping in. You thought he always looked cutest when he came in tired and slightly disheveled. Like a little sleepy puppy. You had written about it extensively in your diary and were glad that today happened to be one of the times when he came in late. Still, you were sure someone would eventually inform him of just what you thought of him. Reapers were gossipy bitches.</p><p> </p><p>You felt a pair of eyes burning in the back of your head, and turned around to see his handsome unshaven face sitting on top of the cubical wall looking over at you, as he was wont to do. He did look tired, and he did look cute. Since he wanted to talk to you, it didn’t look like he was ready to get started on work. Either that, or he was already finished and just came in to keep up appearances, lest his efficiency be punished with yet more work.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, so how's your morning been?” he asked. He could always be chatty. Usually you didn’t care much for smalltalk, but when it was with him you could talk about the weather to no end.</p><p> </p><p>“Well,” you started trying to decide exactly how in depth you wanted to go. If he was asking then it meant he probably didn’t know yet which was a good sign. It was probably best to talk about it with him now before the rumors came to him through the grapevine and he got some twisted perception of you. “Pretty normal,” you lied instead.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s good to hear,” he replied. “Obviously, I got up on the wrong side of the bed,” he added, indicating his messy hair. “I had a pretty wild night. I’ll just say that Adelaide from Requisitions doesn’t seem to need sleep like normal people do.” You knew about his exploits with the various women amongst Dispatch and were happy that he considered you enough of a friend to talk about them with you. You were ordinarily able to handle it despite your attraction to him, but after everything that happened today you were uniquely unable to think about it. You were just about done with your deskwork anyway.</p><p> </p><p>You stood up and gave a polite line about needing to leave on collections, but he stopped you as you passed by his cubicle.</p><p> </p><p>“Hey, on your way out can you take these files down to Forensics, I was supposed to bring them there on my way in but it-” he paused to yawn. Gosh, but he was cute when he yawned, really continuing to broadcast those sleepy puppy vibes. “Uh, slipped my mind.” You didn’t resent him for sleeping around, you were just supremely jealous. You weren’t even sure that he liked anyone other than women. You agreed to take it for him and he gave you a smile that set your heart on fire.</p><p> </p><p>On your way out of the office you passed by Grelle who was being made to dry out all of the mail she had drenched when the spirit of anarchy overtook her. She gave you a look, then a smile, then a look again. You smiled back. As far as you knew she was the only one of your crushes who had actually seen any of the diary pages.</p><p> </p><p>You didn’t really know how to feel, part of you had hoped that out of any of them she’d understand exactly how you felt with the way she loudly vocalized her feelings for men and the occasional woman to everyone around her. Only when she looked at you just now there was a distinct mix of negative feelings on her face. She wasn’t exactly famous for eschewing double standards but it still sucked. </p><p> </p><p>The thought of her disliking you made you really melancholy. She was the most beautiful woman you’d ever seen in your life and you had always gotten along with her so well. You never really had a lot of female friends and it was always a nice change being able to do stuff you could never do with any of the guys you knew. Besides, she was the only other trans person in your department which was a whole other thing that made you love her. She’d open up to you about her dysphoria in a way she never did to anyone else, and you to her. The last thing you wanted was to ruin that friendship, or maybe it was what you wanted more than anything.</p><p> </p><p>You’d need to talk to her about it later, but knowing yourself you’d probably put it off or never do it at all.</p><p> </p><p>You made your way down to the basement of the building. It was always cold down there in the Forensics labs, which always struck you as odd since there wasn’t any need as far as you could see. Reapers had magical ways of keeping bodies from decomposing. You wondered if it was just a formality. Still, the cold always kept you from visiting your friend Othello for more than a few minutes at a time. You dropped off the documents and figured you could take a moment to stop by and say hi. With any luck he wouldn’t have seen or heard of any of the stuff you had written about him.</p><p> </p><p>You made your way to his lab and found him chewing on candy while performing an autopsy which you were pretty sure wasn’t in keeping with procedure, or even sanitary.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh wonderful, it’s really nice to see you!” he said, when he spotted you coming through the doorway. “Everyone in Forensics has been asking me about you, for some reason, but most of the questions don’t really make sense. For example, people keep asking if you’ve seen me for your ‘check up.' This is coming from people who know that I’m not a medical doctor, mind you.”</p><p> </p><p>Ugh, you’d written a whole lot about him in your diary involving your thing for doctors. Of course you also knew he wasn’t a doctor, just a dork in a lab coat, but that didn’t stop you from fantasizing where you thought no one would ever see. You figured you ought to talk to him about the diary situation too, at the very least so he could know why it was that people kept badgering him about you. Instead you tried to change the subject.</p><p> </p><p>“So what’s the deal with this stiff?” You asked, indicating the body on the table between you. His face lit up, more than eager to tell you about the latest necromancy scandal. Oh, but he was so adorable when he infodumped to you. You stopped paying attention pretty quickly, instead focusing on the little way he passionately emphasized each talking point with his hands. Seeing him gesticulate was a rare sight with his hands usually buried deep in his pockets, a body, or a bag of licorice. It really took a lot of doing getting them to come out, so he must be really excited about this case. You wondered if you’d see him outside of this lab for days. It was sad, he was the one you spent the most time outside of work with, and you really needed someone to vent to tonight.</p><p> </p><p>You could have stayed there all day, but you did have a job to do, and the cold of the room already had your teeth chattering. You exchanged farewells and finally left the frigid hell that was the Forensics Division.</p><p> </p><p>You eventually made your way out of the office and took a portal to the human realm. The fresh air made you feel better already. You looked at your to-die book and set off in the direction of your first collection.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>You knew that wouldn’t be the end of it, the rumors about you were the prime scuttlebutt of the office for a week, but you never expected that you would be the one to get in trouble. Even though you never intended for any of the things you wrote to be seen by anyone, they were still highly inappropriate and they got you in a lot of hot water with HR. Garbage bureaucracy.</p><p><br/>There was an ongoing HR investigation into who did this, but you didn’t really feel like it would yield any results. You honestly had just as many enemies in HR as anywhere else. It was just as possible that the perpetrator was someone there.</p><p> </p><p>That was how you found yourself in William’s office again, only this time accompanied by three additional reapers; all of whom, including William had been subject to your affectionate musings. You were meant to have a talk and make amends while William led you all in a corporate sensitivity training. You were coping with the reality of the situation better now, but it was still supremely embarrassing. They were all your friends, but now they knew you had crushes on them in addition to the unbecoming things you thought about them. HR really didn’t need to inform them all so thoroughly of the content of your diary the way it had. Thankfully William’s disdain for HR trumped even your own.</p><p> </p><p>“And so that’s why I was made to gather the four of you here. But I believe that this ‘sensitivity training,’ is unjust.” The way he said sensitivity training was with a disgust greater than when you heard him talk about demons. “So we’re just going to sit in here for an hour and pretend like we did it. Now, if you don’t mind I am going to get some work done,” he finished before turning to the papers on his desk and muttering: “To think they wanted us to waste our time with this sickens me to no end.”</p><p> </p><p>You turned to Ronald, Othello, and Grelle gathered around the little coffee table in the corner of Will’s office, all of whom looked at each other and you with a certain low level of unease. HR was right about one thing, you probably did need to stop procrastinating and actually talk about this with them.</p><p> </p><p>“So…” you started, “did you guys wanna play Bridge or...?”</p><p> </p><p>“This is bullshit, how come you’re the one whose gotten in trouble over this!” Grelle shouted to a sharp tsk from William who was trying to concentrate. She politely lowered her voice, but only slightly. “What are we doing just sitting around, the three of us need to find who did this and paint them red!” she said swinging her Death Scythe through the air threateningly.</p><p> </p><p>“But it could be anybody, besides, I don’t think they want us forming some kind mob of vigilante justice,” said Ronald, idly leaning back in his chair and closing his eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“Who cares what they want. Fuck this place and its stupid rules!” she replied, emphasizing her point with a loud rev of her Death Scythe that once again brought the ire of William.</p><p> </p><p>“I think he meant them,” Othello said pointing to you. He had bags under his eyes from having spent the entire night up in the Forensics lab, but was otherwise chipper as always. You were flattered that Grelle wanted to get revenge on your behalf, but more than anything you just wanted to pretend like this fiasco never happened.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, let’s just drop it,” you said with a shy laugh that felt hollow. You were certain they picked up on it, but none of them decided to press you any further. There was a silence that fell over the four of you. This was it, there was no avoiding it any longer. You had all of them with you in the room at once. There was no excuse. “So… about what I said in my diary...”</p><p> </p><p>“Save it darling,” Grelle interjected when you trailed off, before piping down a bit and putting away her Death Scythe. “We’ve all already decided it doesn’t matter. We’re still your friends, and none of it bothers us. We realize how embarrassing it is so there’s no need to talk about it any further.” You appreciated it and she seemed a little sheepish about her pronoun gaff from before. It, combined with the chidings from William, had tamped down on her flame a little.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, it’s all water under the bridge, no need to to worry about us,” added Ron.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m honestly flattered, I had no idea you felt that way about me,” said Othello with a soft smile, causing you to blush. “You could have just told me, do you want to get coffee with me after this? I never get to leave the Reaper Realm, it might be nice to go out sometime.”</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t believe you, you petulant little geek!” Grelle shouted, reigniting and standing up to grab Othello by his collar. “How could you do this to us!”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah that honestly seems a little like cheating,” said Ronald, annoyed. He leaned forward with a slight frown and knitted eyebrows. “Weren’t we going to just let them figure things out? If I had known we could ask them out, I would have when I found out.”</p><p> </p><p>“Sorry, must have slipped my mind,” said a tired Othello rubbing the back of his neck as he hung limply inside his slightly oversized lab coat.</p><p> </p><p>“I uhh…” you started but were unable to continue. Your brain was shortcutting again. Whatever it was you were going to say was cut off by Grelle who threw Othello back into his seat.</p><p> </p><p>“Besides, if they’re going to pick any of us it’s obviously going to be me, I mean… just look at me, ah-!” Grelle herself was cut off by William, who had snuck up behind her without any of you realizing, grabbing her by the ear and pulling her back down into her seat.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, so if we all are interested then,” William started as Grelle squirmed in his hand, “let’s just let them decide who they want to date so we can be done with this silliness and I can get back to my paperwork. The last thing I want is to be forced into any more overtime just because we all fought over their affection.” He let go of Grelle who slumped in her chair. There was a small sound of agreement from the assembled Reapers.</p><p> </p><p>Your face was red hot and you buried it in your sleeves as they all looked at you. So not only did they not secretly hate your guts, they all had secretly reciprocated your feelings. Maybe how things shook out wasn’t so bad after all. Still, now you were faced with a seemingly impossible decision, and you felt like your brain was threatening to dissociate and freeze up again. You decided to think things through one at a time.</p><p> </p><p>There was William, stern and handsome and often cold as ice. More than anything you wanted to be the one to melt that icy exterior. Plus, you knew he was very capable of taking care of you and you bet he would be able to take care of you in other ways too.</p><p> </p><p>There was Ronald with his lady killer attitude and boyish charm. The very image of a childhood crush, and you knew your childhood self would hate you forever if you let this opportunity pass you by. He was by far the cutest boy you’d ever met, and ordinarily you’d think of him as way too far out of your league.</p><p> </p><p>There was Grelle.</p><p> </p><p>And then lastly there was Othello, the soft bookish nerd who always made you smile. Probably the one you got along with the best and the one with whom you spent the most time outside of work already. Also, there had to be something said for the fact that he was the only one outside of your department, which would probably cause less future headaches with HR.</p><p> </p><p>Oh, just how could you possibly ever decide? You thought you probably never could.</p><p> </p><p>“Maybe… I could date… all of you?” you finally said looking up from your hands. It was a long shot, but it was all you had.</p><p> </p><p>They all looked at each other then back at you.</p><p> </p><p>“Okay, why not,” said Grelle and all the boys made noises of agreement.</p><p> </p><p>And you froze again for just a moment, before you melted into a puddle.</p>
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